That said I have two points:
One, teams do not want their players messing around because of PR blunders… Anyone who is a sports fan has seen what happened this week to Larry Fitzgerald. Poor guy made comments to his brother about Kurt Warner and his brother tweeted it. Another player for the Washington Redskins got upset at the fans and tweeted his feelings only to make quick apologies to the fans for calling them dim whit.

Two, as a business owner I want the people who work for me to work when I am paying them, not spend time tweeting, Facebooking or worse, spending time on LinkedIn looking for jobs. I don’t mind personal business, but do it during lunch. I am pretty laid back and promote a happy environment, but major companies feel the same way and in this economy look at their employees as “line workers”, more specifically, if you are not producing the will fire the under achieving employee and hire the next in line. Employees must realize that they are all replaceable and need to put their best foot forward.

Obviously I agree with Cindy point. With regard to your comments about employees posting positive comments about their employers you’ve got to be kidding!!! I have never seen a positive word about anyone’s employer. Most recent post that I can recall “I love my job today, of course it’s the weekend and I’m going out with friends today…..” I certainly understand the power of social media and networks (after all here I am contributing), but there is a time and a place for everything. If you feel that your social networking is becoming addicting and is hindering your job performance you may have a problem and most likely so does your boss/employer.

Interesting point. But, I worked in a newsrooms for 26 years. When I came up, editors still kept bottles in their desk and shared after the last deadline. It was an accepted part of the job. Sometimes, on a really tough day, the bottle came out before the work was done. It did not affect the quality of the paper.

I have also seen employees do a lot of things they probably shouldn’t have. But, my point is they are going to do it anyway. Why not allow it, which I think will build employee goodwill. Happy employees are a key part of any company’s branding efforts. In the midst of the checking their Facebook page, they might actually say good things about their employer. That builds cache for the employer.

Plus, you want to ensure everyone will do something – ban it. The forbidden is always more tempting. Take away the ban and I willing to wager 75 percent of those indulging in a forbidden activity will stop doing it.

You have to remembver, too, that there’s big money involved here; and it’s not just being paid to the players. Sponsors are involved, too. Anyone who is paying them would have to wonder just how hard they were concentrating on the job at hand if they were twittering during their spare moments.